I’m a composer, and I’m currently involved in a volunteer program where I get to teach middle schoolers how to write their own music. One of my students is a big horror movie fan, and he asked me for some music that would inspire him to write a “scary” piece. When I was hunting down some tunes for him, I realized that all the best scary music I knew was classical. Something about screeching violins, booming organs and choirs chanting in Latin is just spookier than any electric guitar or drum kit, right? And what sounds more like dancing skeletons than a xylophone?

So I was inspired. I knew I had to do an all-classical Halloween playlist for you. A few of these you might recognize, even if you’re not a classical fan — from their use in Looney Tunes or Fantasia. But I hope there will be a few surprises!

An orchestra I was in at camp read through the fourth movement of Symphonie fantastique but we didn’t perform it, and I’ve played the second Peer Gynt Suite, but not the first one (the one that has In the Hall of the Mountain King). So close, but no quite. Disappointing, though, since I love all the pieces mentioned, obviously! The piece I’m writing right now is actually somewhat modeled on Symphonie fantastique.

i’m a really big fan of charles ives’ quarter-tone piano pieces, and i guess they could sound pretty creepy if you’re not really into that…same goes for a lot of Penderecki’s music. Also, Harry Partch’s microtonal music!

i’ve been playing around with polytonality a lot in this violin/cello duet i’m working on for class, and it’s really a lot of fun. and at the end of this summer i finished up a short minimalism piece for acoustic guitar, string quartet, and percussion.

I love Steve Reich! His music is amazing both to listen to and play. I have to say one of the highlights of my life was getting to talk to him a couple of times. What did I ask him? How to pronounce his name. DEEP STUFF

Well, this is the post that finally got me to set up an Autostraddle account. When I was on tour with a musical group a couple of years ago, I would put my ipod on shuffle to sleep on the bus. I would often wake up in the middle of the night from terrifying dreams to find that I was listening to the Rite of Spring…

Rose, as for guessing what you’ve performed, tell us what you sing/play first!

One time last year my roommate turned out all the lights in the apartment and put on the Red Violin concerto by John Corigliano (fun fact: gay). We listened to the whole thing in the dark and it was TERRIFYING. So I recommend that. Especially the second and fourth movements.

Yeah, unfortunately I decided not to include that movement – as macabre as the whole scaffold scene is in the fourth movement, I thought the witch’s sabbath in the fifth was more befitting the Halloween theme.

By the way, if anyone wants to learn more about the volunteer program that I can talk about in the post, it’s called Junior Bach and you can read about it here: http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/3021 and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.